


Burnout

by fourdaysofrain



Series: Tumblr Prompts [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-17 11:36:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21053756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourdaysofrain/pseuds/fourdaysofrain
Summary: It’s not as if he wanted to be doing homework four hours before his alarm would go off. After the blip, there was chaos in Queens. All of the universe, really, but he was having a hard enough time focusing on his own small borough. He had to help whoever he could. A few hours less of sleep certainly wouldn’t kill him. Not when he could be using those hours to save other people’s lives.---Tumblr prompt: Peter like,, falling behind on his schoolwork or feeling overwhelmed with both school and spidermanning and then Tony helping him get back on track?





	Burnout

Peter let his head drop into his hands as he stared down at the worksheet on the desk in front of him. He had been doing  _ so  _ well with staying on top of things, but he was halfway through webbing up a mugger at the end of his patrol when he remembered he had a Spanish assignment due tomorrow.

So here he is, watching his clock tick closer towards sunrise, trying to remember the irregular preterit verbs and ignoring the bruise on the side of his face that will hopefully be gone by morning. 

It’s not as if he wanted to be doing homework four hours before his alarm would go off. After the blip, there was chaos in Queens. All of the universe, really, but he was having a hard enough time focusing on his own small borough. He had to help whoever he could. A few hours less of sleep certainly wouldn’t kill him. Not when he could be using those hours to save other people’s lives. 

His weekly patrols turned to twice a week, to every other day, to every evening, to whenever he wasn’t doing homework or eating. He worked on assignments in between classes and during decathlon practice. He studied for decathlon before he ate dinner. It was a delicate system, sure, but as long as he didn’t make any mistakes he would be fine.

Of course, thanks to Sr. DiPaolo, his delicate system was crashing down around him like a pyramid of champagne flutes. He knows he should just go to bed and take the zero, but he can’t stop looking at the page. He has to do this assignment. If he doesn’t, his grades will fall and he’ll never get into MIT and he’ll have to be a high school dropout and will probably end up homeless on the street selling himself for food. All because of this god damn Spanish worksheet.

He holds back a choked sob. Great, and now he’s crying as well. The words in front of him float around his head as his eyes burn. He can’t remember the last time he got a full night’s sleep. Even when he gets in bed on time, he keeps himself up thinking of the battle at the Avenger’s compound. He saw Tony die. He knows, rationally, that Tony is currently living happily at the lakehouse, still recovering from the damage the gauntlet caused. But he saw the light leave his eyes. He saw his pale (too pale, always too pale) skin flecked with blood and dust fall slack. And that’s all he sees when he closes his eyes to sleep. 

Lovely stuff to think about when he’s trying not to cry. 

He scratches out a shaky  _ tuviste  _ before jolting at the buzz of his phone on the desk. The screen proudly flashed a picture taken a few months-- well, 5 years and a few months-- ago of him and Tony posing with a specialized blender he made for Dum-E’s birthday. It’s Tony’s contact photo. Peter debates letting it ring and avoiding the lecture about being up too late. He sighs and answers it. He just needs to get his mind off of his homework one way or another. Even if it means he’ll be sleeping even less. 

“Hey, Mr. Stark.” He hopes he sounds like he just got up, rather than like he’s holding back tears. 

“Hey, kid. How are things?” Peter’s eyebrows scrunched at the tinny voice coming through the phone.

“You called me at 3am just to ask how things were?” His voice cracked when he raised it at the end of his question. Hopefully, it went unnoticed. 

“Are you doing okay, Peter?” No such luck. Tony’s voice had dropped to a lower register. And he used his actual name. There was no escaping this now. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. It’s nothing superhero related, so you don’t need to worry,” Peter said as he wiped his nose, the not-crying pretense already out the window. 

“Pete,” he was really not used to hearing this level of care in Tony’s voice, “I’m Tony 2.0 now. I’ve got a kid. I’m more emotionally mature, according to Pepper at least. You can talk to me. I’m all about that sappy stuff now.” Just what he needed. A reminder that everything has changed. 

“Why’d you call me, then?” Peter couldn’t help but feel like a petulant child. He heard a drawn-out breath come from the other side of the call. 

“I had a nightmare where you didn’t come back.” Peter freezes in his place. He was expecting a deflecting joke, not an actual answer. “We still saved the rest of the universe, but you stayed in the soul stone. Now I can handle that on my own, but I saw you were in the suit just a couple minutes ago-- May and I will be talking to you about that, by the way-- and I decided to give you a call.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,  _ oh. _ I care about you, kid. So what’s going on? Why are you crying in the middle of the night?”

“It’s stupid. I have an assignment due in Spanish tomorrow and I’m just starting it now. It’s not even that hard, I just can’t do it. I’m going to fail.” Peter adamantly held back the sob crawling up his throat. 

“You’re not going to fail. How much is this assignment worth?” Tony’s voice was impossibly soft as he spoke. 

“It’s uh-- part of the homework section, which is 20% of the final grade.” He sniffed pathetically. “It’s so stupid, sorry.”

“It’s not stupid.” A pause. “Peter, is this really about the assignment? You know one missed assignment won’t change your grade. Last I checked you still have a 98 in Spanish.”

There’s a pause as Peter catches his breath. It’s really not about the assignment. The assignment is just the tip of an iceberg that’s been growing ever since he came back. 

“It’s just all… so much.” Peter’s words came out quietly, as if afraid he would break completely if he spoke any louder. 

“Kid, you’re 18. Or 23, depending on how the government decides to count the blip. You’re pushing yourself too hard. You’ve been patrolling every night for hours on end and still getting straight As. You need to care for yourself.”

“There are too many people out there who need Spider-Man. I can’t just let them get hurt,” Peter says as he tries to get his breathing under control. Tony waits patiently.

“Listen to me, Pete. Are you listening?” Tony waits to hear a confirmation from him before continuing. “You can’t save everyone. You’re saying that, while you’re on patrol, every person who got in trouble is in trouble because you didn’t save them. Right?”

Peter nods before remembering he’s on the phone. He mutters a quick yes.

“You’re wrong. New York’s a shitty place. People get hurt every day. You can’t blame yourself for that. If you look at it from my perspective-- the right one-- every person you help is safe and unharmed because of you. You’re not looking at the people you’ve saved, just the ones you didn’t. You’re setting yourself up to fail. No one can stop all crime in Queens. Not even Spider-Man.”

“I guess.” Peter doesn’t even feel upset anymore. He just feels numb. He wants to go to sleep.

“God, this must be how Rhodey felt. Back to the matter at hand: your homework.” 

“I can’t do it, Mr. Stark, but I can’t miss an assignment.” Peter runs a hand through his hair and ignores the way his voice wavered. 

“Alright. Executive decision time. I’m excusing you from school tomorrow. What day is tomorrow, Friday? No, not you--” Tony’s voice gets quieter as he moves away from the speaker to scold his AI. 

“Yeah, tomorrow’s Friday.” Peter can feel a glimmer of amusement underneath whatever has a grip on his chest. 

“Good, good. So you’re going to skip school and come to the lake house for a nice long weekend. I can work the details out with May before she goes to work. Text me when you wake up and I can send Happy over.”

“Mr. Stark, I can’t miss a day! I’ll just fall even more behind. I can’t-- handle that right now.” His breath hitches as he speaks.

“Yes, you can. Bring your homework but don’t bother bringing the suit. I’ll work with you on your homework, but this is going to be a Spider-Man free weekend. We’ll just be conjugating verbs until the cows come home. You’re a smart kid, Pete. Believe me, one day off from high school won’t kill you. Overworking yourself might, though.”

Peter sighs. He knows when he’s in a fight he can’t win. 

“Okay.”

“Looking forward to it. And, kid, I do care about you. Don’t be afraid to talk to me. Even if it’s not related to your sticky friend. I know it must be strange that I have a daughter now, but you’re still my kid. That’s never going to change no matter how many space-dictators try to take over the universe. You’re incredible. You just have to give yourself some slack. Now, get some sleep. I-- I love you.” 

Before Peter can respond, Tony ends the call. He’s left looking blankly at the phone in his hand. Well, that was new. 

He’s not better yet. He has a while to go before he can feel relaxed. But, slowly, the weight on his shoulders gets a little lighter. And that night, he dreams of springtime. 

**Author's Note:**

> rip if there's any grammar issues, I'm trying to be a little less of a perfectionist, we'll see how it goes lol  
check me out on tumblr at [spider-beep.tumblr.com](spider-beep.tumblr.com)


End file.
